Peter Tucker (Advocacy & Public Policy Director, Vermont Association of Realtors) joined the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday to discuss S.311 and H.687 which both deal with overhauling Act 250. He was excited at the prospect of the “ways these two Bills will end up working together,” suggesting this is a “real opportunity” to reform land use and housing development. He acknowledged the work of the Summer Study Committee and the Natural Resource Board (NRB) and study of land use designations and the realtors association were participants in both.

Representative Brady walked through the House’s miscellaneous education bill, H.874, on the floor Tuesday. The first four sections of the bill would task the Adult Education and Literacy Student Access Committee created last year with making recommendations. The bill also adds funding for the Community Schools pilot project from the Education Fund. Another important provision of the bill brings back a Universal Chart of Accounts (UCA) requirement for school districts so that policy makers can more easily compare the spending of two districts. The key difference in this version of the UCA is it does not mandate that all districts must use the same software, only that they use the same accounting standards and categorization.

The Senate Education Committee got their first look at H.873 on Tuesday, which deals with school PCB testing. The House, faced with skyrocketing costs of the program and lack of funding and to determine whether to pause, discontinue, or shift to a universal school construction scheme. The bill they came up with does allow for continued testing, but limits funding and deadlines.

Senator Weeks offered an amendment to S.304 on the Senate Floor Friday on behalf of the Committee on Education. The amendment was a strike-all which would provide students in grade six through eight with career enrichment and exposure to their regional Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center. The bill also provides students enrolled in grades nine and ten a genuine opportunity to participate fully in pre-tch and exploratory career and technical courses.

Chairman Conlon introduced an amendment from the Appropriations on Thursday morning. Representative Mihaly was there to present it and began by explaining some of the technical provisions of the amendment, including the new 60/40 split between the General and Education Funds for adult education.

Chairwoman Kornheiser kicked off a joint hearing of the House Education and Ways & Means Committees on Thursday. She explained the format is to have a “free flowing” discussion of ideas without the need for formal legislation proposal; she asserted these ideas are from many around the (virtual) table. “The diversity and scale and complexity of some of the issues that we are facing in education and education finance this year necessitate more open dialogue,” she stated.

The House Government Operations Committee heard from Representative Brennan on Tuesday who, on behalf of the Town of Colchester, proposed an amendment to H.875 (the municipal ethics bill) which would require towns who have established policies and procedures on Ethics to be exempt from the entirety of the Bill upon submitting a letter from the legislative body to the State Ethics Commission by December 31^st of each year certifying that the municipality has adopted an ethics policy and  framework that does not conflict with the state standards.

The House Ways & Means Committee reviewed H.829 on Wednesday. This bill as originally proposed by Representative Stevens to restore,  enhance, and supplement elements of Vermont’s pandemic-era housing policy  that ceased with the termination of federal pandemic aid by implementing  permanent upstream eviction protections and other rental housing policies to  preserve housing stability for both tenants and property owners, including by  creating a rental registry; allocating resources for eviction diversion;  modernizing policies on just cause evictions, rent increases, and security deposits; and creating programs for property owners to access funding to remediate damages created during recent tenancies.

Gus Seelig (Executive Director, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board) was first to testify In the Senate Natural Resources on Wednesday Morning on S.311 after Chairman Bray gave some housekeeping remarks. The bill aims to overhaul the Act 250 land use system and install a tiered mapping system that makes it clear which land is available for development and which is not.